Strangely, most employee documents from 1985-1995 vanished. The missing documents fall more heavily on the UCAT side than the IAI side, but it is unclear if it was done intentionally or if came about naturally and no guess can be made as to the reason behind it.

It seems the blank period began with the great Kansai earthquake on December 25, 1995. The earthquake’s epicenter was in southeastern Osaka and it caused M8 levels of damage. When IAI, Japanese UCAT, and some foreign UCATs rushed in to provide aid, many of them fell victim to secondary damages. The common understanding is that the information was erased to prevent information on UCAT from leaking out due to what happened, but only a few members of Japanese UCAT and other UCATs know the truth.

In response to this scandal, IAI replaced most of its leading members and began working in new industries such as space development in ’97. However, Japanese UCAT was continually pressed for answers by the other UCATs around the world, so they did not recover until the late ’90s.

Natsu: Okay, time for something practical. Sandlance may be written with the characters for “little girl”, but don’t get carried away and turn it into some kind of joke, okay?

Brunhild: I will ignore that. Anyway, removing the oil from the fried tofu comes first, right? You either boil it or put it in a colander and pour hot water over it. This is really a pain. Can’t we just leave the oil in? The cat can handle it.

Natsu: You can also warm it a bit on the stove and wring it out with a paper towel. After you chop up the green onion, stir-fry the fried tofu with the sesame oil.

Brunhild: And then I put in the bonito sauce, right? One tablespoon and then… ah, what a pain. I accidentally dumped way too much in there. But it doesn’t matter if the flavor is too strong. The cat can handle it.

Cat: I-I don’t like the sound of what you’ve been saying! Wait! What kind of strange forcible way of stirring is that!? This isn’t natto!

Natsu: Very unique, isn’t it? Now, once you mix both together in a different pot… Here, kitty.

Cat: Ah, it’s a bit bitter, but it’s nice. I think I like having a lot of bonito sauce.

Brunhild: Then I can put all the leftover katsuobushi in. Here, eat mine too.

Cat: Okay. …Wait. Ugh. Wh-what the hell is this!? Just to be absolutely clear, you’re a terrible cook!

Brunhild: How rude. How can you call this bad…

Brunhild: Oh, wow.

Cat: See! You just said “oh, wow”! …Hm? What are you doing? Waaah!!

Natsu: Oh, dear. How cruel. To make it a little different, you can use chopped bell peppers instead of green onion.

2. Cut the white portion of the green onion into round slices and chop the green portion into 2 cm pieces.

3. Put a lot of sesame oil in a pot and stir-fry Step 1.

4. Add a lot of bonito sauce to the pot from Step 3 and thoroughly mix it all together.

5. Put the sandlance in a different pot and cook it on medium heat with the remaining sesame oil.

6. Add Step 2 and Step 4 to the pot from Step 5 and mix it all together by flipping it in the pot. Once it is cooked, add the rest of the bonito sauce and mix in the katsuobushi. Afterwards, adjust the flavor by adding more bonito sauce.